Page 51 of The Killer’s Mark

‘I wonder what happened to him?’

‘Nothing nice. He only stayed in London because Buckby had convinced him to talk to me. The fact that he didn’t arrive for our meeting means Buckby gave him up.’

‘Do you think he’s dead too?’

Poe nodded.

‘How did they even know to torture Mr Buckby, though?’ Bradshaw asked. ‘If we correctly understand the time frame, he was dead two hours after he called you. That’s not a big window, Poe.’

‘No, it’s not. That part doesn’t make sense.’

‘Unless they were listening to his phone calls,’ she said. ‘They heard him talk to his contact and knew they couldn’t allow you to meet him.’

Poe nodded. That made sense. ‘Maybe they were listening to my phone.’

‘You can’t listen to our phones, Poe. I’ve encrypted them against anything available today.’

‘His phone it is then,’ Poe said. ‘Which leads us neatly on to the next question: how did they know they needed to listen to him? He isn’t involved in whatever this is. He didn’t know anything about it. His entire involvement was identifying the guy in the porn movie and sending out the tattoo pics to some of his contacts.’

‘Did you tell the police about Chance Ryzcek?’

‘I didn’t, Tilly. But I called him from the back of Locke’s car and advised him to leave town for a few days. He’s safe.’ He yawned. ‘We’ll have a look at the Buckby crime-scene photographs and videos first thing tomorrow. I don’t want them to be the last thing I see before I go to bed.’

‘Nor me, Poe,’ she said. ‘And you’re looking very tired.’

He stretched. Yawned again. ‘To be honest, I’m more full than tired.’

Bradshaw frowned. ‘Why would you be full? Alastor Locke told me you had a salad at Dookers.’

‘Slip of the tongue.’

‘But—’

‘Not everything has to be about me, Tilly,’ he cut in.

‘That makes no sense.’

‘Look, it doesn’t matter if it was a salad or a massive sticky toffee pudding with thick caramel sauce, the important thing is Estelle doesn’t need to find out. Agreed? And tomorrow we hit the tattoo with everything we have. Someone doesn’t want us looking into it; I want to know why.’

Chapter 42

Poe got up early. Had breakfast with Estelle. She cooked scrambled eggs, sliced some ham. Poe said he was fine with coffee.

Estelle smiled and said, ‘Yeah, I heard about your “salad”.’

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Poe protested. ‘There were only three things on the menu. Potted shrimp, mutton, and sticky toffee pudding. The members call the mutton the “Dookers Blue”. I’ve never seen so much meat.’

‘You had an exciting day, then? You’re the first to find the dead man, you’re arrested for the murder of the dead man, and then Alastor Locke takes you to his snooty men-only private members’ club.’

‘Don’t forget the cops at Walworth gave me a Mars bar.’

‘You’ll have to have Esmerée today, Poe. The post-mortem I’m doing is highly sensitive and the senior investigating officer is vetting everyone.’

‘How was she with you?’

Estelle sat down. Started eating her ham and eggs. Poe felt queasy just looking at it.

‘Surprisingly astute,’ she said. ‘Didn’t mess around, didn’t talk back to anyone and did what she was told. She told me she wants to be a pathologist when she grows up.’